


A season in change

by Chiisanafukuro (makuro)



Series: Under the Winter Moon [3]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Ghosts, Hauntings, Light BDSM, M/M, Sex, Sheith Occult Week 2019, Werewolf, Witch - Freeform, Witch AU, necromancy attempts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-09
Updated: 2019-09-08
Packaged: 2020-10-13 01:29:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20574218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/makuro/pseuds/Chiisanafukuro
Summary: Shiro and Keith adjust to life together, learning new powers, new job positions, and everything else about each other.





	A season in change

**Author's Note:**

> A continuation of this AU that I really adore, and an excuse to try doing a Sheith week--because Occult Week is def up my alley. Thanks to Saasan/ for making it a thing! :D 
> 
> Original inspo for the series by [This](https://twitter.com/TheProjectAVA/status/1058082255501967361) [And This](https://twitter.com/TheProjectAVA/status/1061604107880947712) by @theprojectava
> 
> This is also hella unedited. May make updates to fix that, but I want to post tonight so HERE IT IS IN ALL IT'S AWFUL GLORY.

Crisp, cool air against his nose and ears was the first sensation he had on waking. He burrowed further under the blankets, their weight and warmth enveloping his half asleep body like a hug, or a very solid cloud of fluff. Something like that.

“Keith! Baby you gotta get up at some point.”

Under the covers Keith groaned and pushed his face into his pillow, or Shiro’s pillow, since it smelled like Shiro’s shampoo and not his. The bed was warm and soft. Getting up meant leaving it’s safety for the cold air—and it was certainly still freezing out there since Shiro always forgot to turn the heat up in the morning, damn furnace of a man—and Keith was very much naked inside of his cocoon.

He’d turn into an icicle if he got up.

“Keith! C’mon babe, I made sausages!”

The smell from the kitchen was creeping into his awarenesses now. Maple sausages, the good ones from Hunk that Shiro always turned into excellent breakfast sandwiches for him, because morning and Keith were not a coherent mix. A sandwich was infinitely more navigable than a full plate of breakfast, like Shiro always had.

“And coffee!”

_Coffee_. There it was, the one thing Keith’s half dead brain could latch onto and understand as a reason to risk freezing to death outside of his blanketed safety. He smushed his face into the pillow one last time and groaned through pushing himself upright. Cold air woodshed in through the openings and sunk it’s teeth right into Keith’s bones.

“Fuck,” he hissed and darted out, grabbing whatever clothes were closest and yanking them on. Thick leggings, Shiro’s massive hoodie, and fuzzy socks he was fairly sure were Lance’s that had migrated to their house somehow.

The stairs creaked on his way down, the sound slightly muffled by the music Shiro was playing and softly singing along to. Down in the kitchen everything smells like sausage, syrup, and coffee, warmth from the stove making the space more tolerable than their bedroom. On the table there was already a plated sandwich and steaming mug of coffee. Keith bypassed it for snuggling up against Shiro’s bare back, leeching his warmth.

“Someone’s having a slow morning,” Shiro chuckled.

“Mrphh,” Keith said into his spine.

The toaster popped and Shiro took his out, motions only barely hindered by Keith clinging to his back. He shrugged him off only once he’d spread jam over his toast and needed to take it to his own plate.

Keith slid off with great protest and slumped down into his chair. “Ugh.”

“What time did you come to bed last night?” Shiro asked around a bite of eggs. His plate was stacked—scrambled eggs with cheddar and swiss, a pile of sausages, four pieces of toast, and a sliced apple.

Keith gave a noncommittal grunt and picked up his sandwich, the over medium egg already oozing a bit into the toast. Last night he’d started the arduous process of repotting several of the more sentient plants in the greenhouse and didn’t finish up until the sky was starting to lighten again. He’d been cognizant enough to wash up before crawling buck naked into bed and gluing himself to his furnace of a boyfriend.

“So late, then,” Shiro chuckled. “Just make sure you’re up before noon if you go back to bed. Your schedule is fucked up enough already baby.”

Keith waved off his worry and took a long sip of coffee, welcoming the sweet burn of it down his throat. “I won’t I promise. And the fucked up sleep schedule is your fault, don’t pretend like it isn’t.”

Shiro hummed. “True, but I’m back adjusted since the full moon. You are still pulling all nighters because you don’t know what the word ‘break’ means.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Keith resolutely looked at his sandwich and not at Shiro’s certainly smirking face.

“Sure.” Shiro polished off his breakfast and washed the dishes quickly, making sure that the kitchen was mostly put away. Little habits like this, Shiro’s compulsion to leave every room clean before he moved on, or making sure that Keith was taken care of and fed, he slowly documented as their life together unfolded. Shiro still didn’t open up about his past, who he was before Vrepit Sa got ahold of him, but moments like these spoke volumes of the man he’d been. It helped Keith remind him that he wasn’t so changed from who he was before, in those harder moments.

Shiro turned the faucet off and wiped his hands. “Okay, I’m off to see Hunk. I’ll get more sausage since that was the last. How are you doing on scraps?”

“Could use more, probably. I repotted most of them last night so they’ll be hungrier than usual. Are you going to see Lance?”

“Probably, if he’s around.” Shiro shrugged. “Why?”

“Tell him his fuzzy purple socks are forfeit and that if he wants that tincture he needs to come by on Friday at the latest.”

Shiro walked over and kissed the top of Keith’s head. “You could tell him yourself you know, leave the house for the first time in two weeks.”

“I’ve left the house!” Keith protested.

Shiro snorted, the huff disturbing the hair on Keith’s head. “Walking out the front door to yell at teenagers for loitering in front of the mailbox is not leaving the house, Keith.”

Keith shrugged him off and crossed his arms. “Fine. I’ll go see Lance, but you better bring back one of Hunk’s pies.”

“Sure thing baby.” Shiro leaned down and kissed his pout away. “Chocolate or cherry?”

Keith tried to pull the pout back out, but it was hard after Shiro kiss him so sweet and soft. “Both,” he said. “Or if he has one that _is_ both, that one.”

“I’ll ask. And be sure to finish eating before you leave, Lance doesn’t need to deal with cranky you on top of your usual lovely, bright personality.” He walked away, pulling on his winter jacket and the backpack he used that could strap on his back if he decided to go into wolf form. “I’ll see you tonight, love you!”

Keith waved, eyes dropping back to his sandwich, almost forgetting entirely. “Wait!”

Shiro peeked back around the wall, soft grin on his face. “Forget something?”

Keith bounded out of his chair and took Shiro’s face in his hands. On his cheek the crescent moon warmed slightly as he pulled deep on his power. The words were whispered out of his lips into puffs of smoke-runes that washed down over Shiro. Protected, stability, subtly, and a host of others he blessed Shiro with before leaving the house. It had been immediate habit when Shiro had been stuck as a wolf, but it was harder to remember to do it now that Shiro spent more time as a man. But his own powers were still new to him, acutely unstable, and though he wouldn’t admit it, he was scared to used them.

Keith finished the spells off with a kiss and pressed his hands to Shiro’s chest. “All done. Now go be the little social puppy you are. Love you.”

“You too, baby. Take care of yourself for me,” Shiro said.

Keith went back to the table and took up his sandwich again. Be good for Shiro, be human and active in the world. For Shiro. He took a bite of his sandwich and started to finally, fully wake up.

On the east side of the city there was more traffic, the buzz of life and youth loud around Keith. Coffee shops with awkwardly ambitious names and campy titled lattes sprung out at him from every corner. There was a donut bar, and next to that a place that specialized in Mac n’ cheese, the window art a cute character of the two ingredients in a cartoon kiss made Keith roll his eyes.

Of course this was the side of town Lance would set up his lair in. ** The building did sport a nice mural along the side of it, a undersea scene spreading over the wall, but the gourmet cupcake shop on the first floor with its bright white and pink motif took it out of the realm of ‘benignly artsy’.

Keith bypassed the front entrance and instead climbed up the glamoured fire escape stairs to Lance’s sixth floor apartment. The window was cracked open a hair and Keith slipped his fingers under the edge, pushing it up and all the way open. Blue curtains waved in the wind, around him as he stepped through.

The immediate floor was covered in plants, most of them overspilling from their pots in great disarray. Lance must have pulled them in from where he kept them on the balcony. They were healthy but codependent in a way that made Keith frown. They said hello to him regardless, and he brushed his fingers over them tenderly, giving them a lift.

“FUCK!”

Keith looked up. Lance had plastered himself back against a wall, hand clutching his chest over the towel wrapped around his body, the towel on his head was threatening to slip off. “Hi,” Keith said. “I came about the Spring forecast.”

Lance was clearly still put out about something because he continued screaming. “I thought Shiro was coming! And that’s not the point! Why the fuck are you sneaking in my window?!”

Keith looked back at the window. “It was open? And the front door has the cupcake shop.”

“Exactly! It encourages visitors to bring me one! Which Shiro does! Even as a dog they give him a little treat bag and then I come down and apologize for my friend’s weird dog and they give me a free on because I’m cute and they love me! This is not how the system works window boy!” Lance was halfway across the room now, stabbing his finger in Keith’s direction. “Go downstairs, get a damn cupcake, and come back up like a normal person! So I can get dressed!”

“I don’t want a cupcake?” He really didn’t. Shiro made him cupcakes sometimes, and they were very good and not too sweet, but the shop downstairs looked like it pilled on ‘homemade buttercream’ that was ninety-percent sugar.

“I do!” Lance shrieked and jabbed his finger toward the door. “Vamos!”

Keith retreated back out the window just to make Lance scream more. See if he helped out the weather witch’s plants ever again.

Downstairs the cupcake shop was still very pink and white with gold-pink marble countertops and exceedingly extravagant cupcakes. He looked through the flavors and wondered what Shiro usually got, if he did indeed indulge himself and Lance in cupcakes for visits. The girl at the till was bubbly and overly helpful, her eyes darting to Keith’s cheek every few seconds.

“A salted caramel,” he said slowly, still dubious about this entire thing. “And a red velvet cheesecake.” Out of the corner of his eye he spotted a towering monstrosity of peanut butter and chocolate. He asked for one of those as well.

Back upstairs Lance was dressed and styled, his voice returned to its normal, lower, register. “There, see? Much better.” He took out the caramel one and bit in messily. Through a mouthful of crumbs he asked, “So, Spring forecast?”

They sat down together at Lance’s paper crowded dining table and hashed out the dates for storms, for late frosts and possible early warm days, the ones that hinted at summer but were fleeting through the sleet and spring thaw.

“Look good to you?” Lance was leaned back in his chair, third cup of espresso half drunk next to a calendar covered in scribbles.

“I think this will work, yeah.” He signed off on the page, his fingertip synging the mark into it. “Send it to Ryner and she can make direct requests for anything we missed.”

Lance tilted back to the table and signed as well. “I still can’t believe she entrusted me with watch over the weather for he city,” he murmured. “She’s coming for you next, you know.”

Keith frowned. “Me?”

“She likes what she sees in you, Keith. And Pidge has been talking you up since they started apprenticing under her.” Lance pulled the calendar up and rolled it tight. “Just be ready for when it happens, we all know how you are about change.”

His frown deepened. “What does that mean?”

Lance sighed and twitched the paper off and into the ether with a flick of his wrist. “That means you knew Shiro would be coming into your life for literally… all of your life. And you’re still taking things slow.”

Keith sputtered. “We—no, Lance I can assure you that we are _not_—”

“Not just the bedroom, you idiot. You love him and you’re still…” Lance waved his hand, searching for the word. “Timid, around him.”

“Has he said something?” Worry grew in his gut. Had things not been going as well as Keith thought they were?

“No, not exactly. But you don’t open up man, ever. And he’d someone you can trust to do that with.” Lance smiled. “Just maybe think of ways you can show you trust him. It doesn’t have to be anything big, but let him take care of you in something that’s more than making sure you eat?”

Keith left Lance’s turning his words over in his head. Shiro took care of him, watched out for him in the same ways he always had, but Shiro didn’t think it was enough. Keith couldn’t wrap his head around that, Shiro took care of him in so many little ways every day.

But maybe that was the difference. Since that bitter November night, Keith had been Shiro’s daily caretaker, Ulaz only coming over for check ups. Nightmares and magic attuning work, blessings and charms for when Shiro left the house, and constant upkeep on his arm as lingering curses were removed and new, strengthening spells were sewn into it. Not to mention the basic magic training they were doing so Shiro could function in his powers, without fear.

A thought flitted through his mind. It was one that shot liquid heat down his spine and made him stop for a moment in his walk home. The mere idea of it sent his heart stuttering away into nerves, but it might be a start. A simple gesture of trust between partners.

He picked up his pace and started to formulate what resources he would need once home to call on just the friend to help.

The living room floor was always covered with a large, plush rug do to how many summoning circles had transpired on the worn wood. There was a permanent ring in the center of the floor now, so Keith never had to worry about drawing a perfect closing circle ever again. He mapped out the pattern with shaking hands, nerves eating away at his chest.

When the chalk circle was finished he threw rose petals and an unfortunate casualty of the night before, yet unwashed, into the circle. Summoning rites flowed easily off his tongue, despite his nervousness, and the circle flared red once, sparks flying off of it for a moment and then there was a body in the circle, crouched and displeased.

“What the fuck,” Acxa hissed. “You couldn’t have called.”

“No,” Keith said. “You like to laugh and hang up on me.”

“Because you have stupid questions,” Acxa said. “Which is why I assume I was summoned away from my girlfriend mid-conversation?” Conversation was clearly a lie as Acxa was dressed up in a tight red dress, thigh high stockings and garter visible below the barely there hemline. The outfit was a far cry from her usual dark wash jeans and leather jacket.

Keith grimaced. “Sorry, but I need advice. And for you not to ghost on me about it.”

Acxa’s frown eased. “Trouble in paradise already?”

“I need to… show Shiro I can let go, trust him to take care of me. In general, not just in bed but I thought…” A deep flush was crawling its way up Keith’s neck and cheeks.

Acxa put a hand on her hip. “You thought that you’d summon your succubus friend away from her snack of a girlfriend to ask for BDSM advice?”

Keith looked at the floor. “Yeah?”

“Oh my god. You know the internet exists, right? Like, there are people out there who can answer this question without having to interact with them. Since, you know, they aren’t plants, your preferred lifeform.” Acxa rubbed her forehead. “All right, so you want him to what, tie you up? Gag you?”

Keith closed his eyes and tried to not twitch. “Yes? Maybe? I don’t know, that’s why I need help!”

“You didn’t look up anything at _all_, did you?” The sound of her snapping her fingers echoed through the room. Keith opened his eyes back up to Axca back in jeans and a long-sleeved sweater. “Sit down, let’s… talk about this sudden need of yours.”

Keith said, folding in on himself as much as he could. Acxa listened as he recounted what Lance had told him, and his idea of giving this to Shiro as a gesture of Keith trying, of what Shiro meant to him and that Keith trusted him more than he’d trusted anyone outside of his family clan.

“Just bring it up then,” Axca said, as if it was a simple matter of suggestion.

“How?” Keith sighed and put his head in his hands. “I want it to mean something when I offer, I need to have some kind of request or parameters in hand when I say it.”

“Why? Just walk up, hand him some rope or whatever you want and say ‘I trust you babe, ravish me!’.” Acxa reached forward, pressing her hand to Keith’s knee where it overlapped the circle. “It’s not a proposal, Keith.”

He shrugged. “I know I just, I need to know that he _knows_ what I’m trying to tell him with it.”

Axca hummed. “All right, I think I have an idea then. Later tonight what you do is—”

The sound of the front door opening cut her off, they both looked at each other with wide eyes and with little more than a nod Keith banished her. He scrambled to clear the summoning things.

“Keith? Keith, I need you downstairs!” Shiro called out into the house. “God—er, Lord, I mean, I just hope he’s home. Please, just wait her a moment, I’ll find him. Keith!”

“Coming!” Keith shouted, toeing off the chalk from the floor and trying to flip the rug back out with the other foot at the same time.

Shiro walked in on him trying to angle the rug back to how it had been, but by the way Shiro’s eyebrows shot up he was clearly caught. The soiled pillowcase and rose petals were still in plain sight, and the rug only got moved for one reason.

One eyebrow remained raised, but Shiro said nothing about the state of the living room. “I ran into a Nun and Priest on the way home. They’re having trouble with an exorcism, and wanted to know if you could help.”

Keith desperately tried to will his heart to calm and the blush on his cheeks to leave. “Right. Wait really? They hate working with our kind,” The embarrassment fled in his confusion.

“That’s how bad it is. There’s a mansion on the edge of town that one of their parishioners is trying to sell, and they think it’s a necromancer’s lair now. They keep cleansing it and more spirits just keep coming.”

As Shiro spoke Keith was smoothing out his clothes and hair, and walked to the front door where the two were waiting. The nun was aged, her wrinkled face displaying all of her nerves about being in a witches house. The priest looked more together, his stern face focusing in on Keith when he emerged.

“This is Father McConnelly, and Sister Hester,” Shiro said. “This is Keith—”

“Of Marmora, we know. We’ve worked with his mother for hospital charities,” Father McConnelly said. “We would have asked her, but we were made aware by your father that she is deep in her work at the moment, and that you perhaps had become more apt to this kind of work than she.”

That meant that either his mother was trying to get him to be more active as a local witch, or these two had bothered her so much she was passing on the burden. “I understand. How I can help?”

They looked at each other and then back to him. “It might be best if we went to the property itself. You are skilled in exorcism and facing necromancers, aren’t you?”

“I’ve had to meet one or two, yes. And I can coax spirits out of a haunt,” Keith said. He was highly suspicious of them saying it was a necromancer. The only one he was aware of, that was powerful enough to be any sort of headache, was Haggar. He excused himself to collect his clan dagger from the chest in the living room along with some other spell craft items for cleansing and banishment. As he prepared Shiro dogged his steps.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt your…” he eyed the rug for a moment. “Your day. But they were desperate when they found me at Hunk’s. Are you going to be okay?”

“It’s probably just a bored poltergeist,” Keith said. He opened up his chest again and pulled out an iron horseshoe and hooked it into Shiro’s belt. “But we’ll go see. I very much doubt it’s a necromancer.”

Keith and Shiro were ushered into the back of Father McConnelly’s SUV, inside the smell of incense was overwhelming. Keith cleared his throat and put a hand over his nose. “I take it you’ve been trying too exorcise for a while now?”

“Almost four days with no improvement. In fact the demons have been multiplying, tearing at the walls and leaving destruction in their wake.” McConnelly’s grip on the steering wheel was white knuckled. “There is great evil in that house, and as a man of God it pains me to have to ask this of a …”

“A witch,” Shiro finished for him. “Must the Church see the thing so black and white, Father?”

Steely blue eyes flicked up into the rear-view mirror. “He is not of God, but neither are the things in that mansion. This is beyond the light of our Lord.”

Shiro opened his mouth to retort and Keith stopped him with a tight grip on his hand.

He remembered car rides like this with his mother, with other clergy seeking answers for things they didn’t have spelled out in their Holy plans. He did not begrudge them their religion. “The divine works in mysterious ways, no matter the path of it we follow, Father. I’m just glad I might be of service.”

The mansion was one in an old neighborhood. They passed houses Keith himself had looked at when striking out on his own, this one though was behind a tall stone fence on all sides, the iron gate leading into the property covered in ivy. Snow was piled high on the lawn, still fresh aside from animal tracks. The only sign of human life was the plough piles along the drive, and a stomped out path from it ro the front door.

Beside him Shiro tensed, a low growl started up from his chest and Keith knew his ears would be pinned if he was a wolf. Purple lines traced themselves up his right arm. Keith was ready to ask what he was feeling when it slammed into him.

Well. There was necromancy going on here after all.

McConnelly parked the car but left the engine on. “Gentlemen, I would say that I will come in with you, but to be perfectly frank I do not want to venture inside that home again unless I must.”

“We understand,” Keith said tersely. Perhaps he could be a little judgmental of this particular priest.

The nun squealed in fright and Keith readied himself with a cleansing spell, only to see that she’d jumped at Shiro, who had left the car and immediately turned into a wolf, his hulking white-black form stalking past her window.

Keith rolled his eyes and got out of the car. “You could have warned them you know,” he called.

Shiro boofed happily.

The porch was snow covered and in a state of slight disrepair, but it wasn’t dilapidated or rotting like Keith had almost expected. In fact the entire thing just looked a little disused, not exactly the image of a necromancer lair. He pushed the unlocked front door open, only just keeping his balance as Shiro nosed in ahead of him.

The foyer was clear of anything other than the lingering scent of incense. Afternoon light filtered in, stark and bright as the window outside. Dust motes floated in the shafts of it, creating an eerie calm over the place. Keith could feel the undead here, but it was faint, a small presence compared to what the priest had been describing. He moved to investigate when a chill ran down his arm.

Or rather attached itself to his arm.

“Hello,” he said.

The ghost, a young man with a sunken in face, startled and lifted his hand back. “Huh?”

“Hello,” Keith said again. “You usually greet people before grabbing their arms, you know.”

The ghost moved back, the stumble more of a jerk since his legs weren’t really hitting the ground. “Why aren’t you screaming?”

“Should there be something for me to scream about?” Keith looked the ghost up and down. He wasn’t very powerful, and only about a century old. Taken by some illness no doubt, which was tragic given how young he looked. “I would think you’d be screaming about the wolf here more.”

On cue Shiro growled and snapped his jaws, his own magic leaving him very capable of snatching the ghost in them.

The ghost did yelp and scramble back. “Lord save me! All right, all right I’m sorry! We were just having a bit of fun.”

Keith raised his eyebrow. “A bit of fun? With a necromancer?”

The ghost grimaced. “No, no so much as that but. Well, if I show you will you promise not to completely banish me?” His poor face was twisted in fear now. Keith wondered how long he’d been making himself linger in fear of moving on.

“I promise,” Keith said, “but I also know you’ll feel better once you do.”

The ghost lead them through the rest of the house and up the stairs. The whole place smelled of must and old wood, but it was a rather nice mansion despite it’s hauntings. It wasn’t huge, for a mansion, but it was decently large and could very easily be turned into a local museum.

When they got to the second floor he felt it for certain. There was a dead thing behind one of the doors, and with it the being that had raised it. The ghost’s shoulders rose and fell in the parody of a sigh and the door opened.

Beyond it was not even remotely what Keith had been expecting.

In what had to be the master bedroom, outfitted with 1970’s furniture and wallpaper to match, were several ghosts, a teenage girl with glowing white eyes, and a cat that was limping around very poorly in it’s very dead body.

“The fuck.” Keith looked between the ghosts—there were at least five, all from various eras—the kid slumped against the wall, and the cat which was now trying to hiss at Shiro. Shiro growled back and the cat yowled.

“She,” the ghost pointed to the kid with glowing eyes, “came here a couple of days ago with her dug up cat and tried to raise it. It worked, but she also woke some of us up, and if we had a conduit--”

“You could summon more friends and have a party,” Keith finished. Dormant ghosts needed to be summoned by something, and a living, possess-able body was a great way to rise up. “Let me guess, you’d all be exorcised by a local priest at some point?”

“You try being stuck in a mirror for three decades!” A woman with some fried looking hair yelled. “I was just passing through here from my own haunt to say hello to Bertie and got caught up in _his_ exorcism!”

The one ghost with the sunken in face scoffed. “Just because I like initiating the new tenants every few years doesn’t mean it’s my fault you took a shortcut through my mansion!”

“Enough!” Keith let his frustration leak out in a small burst of energy, the pulse making every ghost shiver. “Party’s over, go back to your regular haunts or I will make you all ascend right here like it or not. And whoever is in the kid—get out! That’s just gross. That’s body snatching and it’s gross, okay.”

The other ghosts faded from view or fled through a wall, all grumbling as they went. One of them merrily flipped Keith off and shot out the window into the night. He had a feeling he might run into that one again and tried not to groan out loud.

A twin to the first ghost peeled itself out of the teenager, looking very put out. “I told you not to invite Ivan,” he said. “Ivan always damaged something and gets us in trouble.”

“I didn’t think he’d crack the whole tub!” The first ghost said. “I thought he’d just chip it enough to get the nun to run away.”

“Are you both from here, then?” Keith knelt down and stuck his hand out for the cat. It did not smell good, and was moving worse. Still, it ambled over to him best it could and sniffed at his hand. The fur was wet with decay and blood, likely hit by a car the way it was limping. Poor thing.

“Yes,” the second ghost said. “I’m Thomas and he’s Lucas Thorton. Her great uncles, taken out by the Spanish Flu.”

“Awful business,” Thomas said. “Mother was beside herself, poor thing. Luckily the other three made it, but we has the misfortune of being stuck to one another’s side.”

“Partners in crime,” Lucas sighed. “Pranksters to the end.”

Keith rose, eyeing the kid in the corner who was slowly coming to. “So you aren’t afraid of the afterlife at all then? Just want to keep pranking poor living souls?”

Lucas grimaced. “Got us.”

He walked over to the kid, who was looking very scared now. “So you possessed your nephew to get more involved and terrorize clergy because?”

“You wouldn’t want to mess with clergy when given the chance?”

Keith thought of Father McConnelly cowering down in his car. “Touche.”

“W-Who… who are…oh _god _Bella!” The kid started to sob when she caught sight of the cat.

Keith crouched beside her, whispering a spell to make the twin ghosts visible to her as he went down. She screamed when she saw them and he tried to sooth her.

“Hey, hey it’s okay, you’re all right. Really, they can’t hurt you, they’re just ancestral jackasses.” Keith put his hand over her arm and let a calming charm release over her.

She took to it, accepting the magic and calming back into a state of mild panic rather than hysteria. “What… oh, oh god it worked. Oh, no, Bella, oh _god_. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

The cat toddled to her and butted her head against the girl’s leg. A small clump of hair fell down and the girl sniffed, looking completely broken as the cat let out a mournful meow.

“She must have been a very good cat,” Keith said. “For you to have gone this far for her.”

“I thought it would being her back,” the girl whimpered. “The book said it would bring her back.”

Keith very much doubted it said that, or if it did it was a book meant to entrap naive humans in powers beyond them. “What’s your name?”

“Alex,” she said. “Who are you?” She tore her watery gaze from her cat and looked up at Keith.

“Keith,” he said. “Someone who knows more about this stuff. I can explain more later, but for now I need your help getting her,” he nodded at Bella. “Back where she belongs. And then you can help me cook up what to do with your idiot great-great uncles, okay?”

Alex looked up at the ghosts who waved sheepishly. She shuddered and her gaze instead fell on the other being in the room. “W-who’s dog is that?”

Shiro whined and sat down, tilting his head to the side sweetly, shattering the imposing sight of a giant, intimidating wolf in moments. “That,” Keith said, “is Shiro. He’s very nice. Do you want him to be here too when we do this? He’s great at comforting people.”

Alex nodded and, with shaking hands, pulled Bella up into her arms. “I’m so sorry girl,” she whispered into a clean patch of Bella’s fur.

Shiro padded over and curled around them both while Keith instructed Alex on what to do. The girl clearly had some ability, or she likely would have just banished herself inside whatever book she’d been trying to use. Even in the process of sending Bella back to the plain of death Alex took in stride, barely requiring Keith’s help.

She wailed when it was over, mourning her beloved cat all over again. Keith summoned a silk cloth to wrap the body in, and as he did the body grew smaller and smaller until it was a small silk stuffed cat, the cloth the same gray-black color that Bella had likely been.

“There, her body and spirit are gone, but this is something you can remember her by,” he said, handing the stuffed animal to Alex.

“Thank you,” she sniffed. “Am I in trouble?”

“Not with us, no. But your family might not be happy about how long you’ve been gone.” Keith smiled at her. “But I can help with that. I think you have abilities, Alex, and there are people in the city who can help you learn how to use them. _Properly._”

Keith extracted a pact of non-interference from the twins before leaving, Alex watching in wonderment as he did so. He told her that if she heard of any more issues from the house, he would personally teach her how to bind her uncles to her as familiars.

Shiro transformed back into a man before they hit the front door, Alex startling greatly at that. He smiled down at her, soft as ever and said, “It’s okay, don’t be afraid of the change. You’ll be all right.”

Keith pulled a slim candle out of his pack and carved a few runes into it with his nail. “Say the incantation I tell you into the wick and the candle will light, once it has, it will alter the memories of those in your life if you wish to make it so you haven’t been missing these past few days.”

Alex took the candle and thanked him. “I can probably get away with saying I was hiding at my best friends house, I told them I was going there anyway. But if I need to I’ll use it. Thank you, Keith, I’ll be contacting the school you told me about soon.”

Keith drew a spell in the air and opened a portal for Alex to use, letting her step out onto the crosstreet near her home. She didn’t need to be on the end of an upset priest and nun on top of what she’d gone through.

“What are you going to tell them?” Shiro asked.

“That I got rid of the necromancer and the spirits. You know, it was a low level one I took out with an epic black magic fight.” He grinned and danced out the front door.

“You’re a menace,” Shiro said, shaking his head.

Back home Keith flopped face first onto their bed, body aching from all of the impromptu spells he’d cast that day. “I hate drop in calls,” he moaned into his pillow.

The bed dipped and a wide, warm hand rubbed over his back. “Yeah? Then who was the person you called up before I walked in today, hm?”

Keith frowned, completely bewildered by the question until it came back to him. He felt the flush spread down his entire body and was thankful that his sweater covered it up. “No one,” he squeaked. “I mean, not, not no one, obviously, but I was just checking on some research and—”

“Keith.” Shiro leaned down and spoke softly into his ear. “I can hear your heartbeat. Just tell me.”

Keith deflated. “Acxa. I called on Acxa.”

Shiro pulled back, his warmth leaving in a rush of cool air. “Acxa? Why?”

Rolling over, Keith faced his boyfriend. His sweet, caring boyfriend who even made sure he went into haunted houses before Keith, even though Keith was the more skilled of the two. “Because I want to let you know that I… that I trust you to take care of me. That I’ll let you, in—in big and small things.” He chewed at his lip and had to look away from Shiro’s confused face. “I thought that maybe, since showing you in other ways is going to take a while, that I could at least make a good gesture by letting you… letting you take the _lead_.”

Shiro mouthed the words until understanding dawned over his face. “Oh?” He now looked a sheepish as Keith felt, his face ruddy red. “And um, how were you, er, we, going to—”

“I was asking her for help on that,” Keith sighed. “But I just want you to, I want to let you… I want you to take control. I want to give myself over and let you do what, whatever it is you want.” He pushed up to lean on his arm, his other hand reached up to cup Shiro’s face. “I trust you.”

Shiro leaned into the touch and pressed a soft kiss to Keith’s palm. Without a word he moved to mouth at Keith’s wrist and, slowly, so tenderly, push Keith onto his back.

The air grew charged, the lights dimming down casting the room in a soft glow. Keith wasn’t sure if he had done it or Shiro, but it didn’t matter. Shiro was pushing his hands up and under Keith’s sweater, pulling it off his body and pinning Keith’s wrists under his hands. “You sure?”

Keith nodded, his voice lost to the emotion swirling in his chest. He felt Shiro’s magic tentatively eck out and wrap around his wrists, a weak binding spell settling there. He couldn’t help but smirk at that. “Wordless. My, my, look at us trying things out.”

“Hush,” Shiro said, and proceeded to shut Keith up with a slow, searing kiss he felt down to his toes.

While Shiro kissed all sanity out of him, he was stripped of his other clothes, legs spread apart for Shiro to settle between. The thick outline of Shiro’s cock pressed into his thigh, bare skin soft against him despite the hardness of it.

When Shiro was satisfied with his plunder of Keith’s mouth he drew down, laving over Keith’s neck, laying lingering bites there. Keith gasped at the sensation of sharp teeth against his throat, the binding over his wrists, light as it may be, sending his heart fluttering in nerves. Shiro must have heard it, sensed it, but he pressed on. Bruises bloomed like flowers over Keith’s skin, but there was never any blood drawn, precision skill leaving him wanting in a mess of pleasure and pain.

By the time Shiro drew level with his cock it was red and weeping against his stomach. Keith was left to Shiro’s mercy legs pinned By Shiro’s weight around them, hips pinned by hands that wrapped nearly all the way around them. He was helpless to Shiro licking up the side of him and swallowing down his dick.

Keith keened, hips straining against Shiro’s hold but there was nothing for it. He could only lay there and take what Shiro gave, mewl and thrash his head against the pillow while Shiro worked him over. First in hard, deep swallows, then in shallow bobbing with particular attention paid below Keith’s head.

When a slick finger traced around and into his entrance he was so far gone he barely registered it until the seeking digit brushed against his prostate. He nearly came then and there, but Shiro back off, leaving his sopping cock to bob in the cool air while he was worked open.

“You’re doing so well baby,” Shiro cooed. “So good for me, so perfect.” He pressed open mouth kissed over the marks he’d left on Keith’s neck.

“Fuck,” Keith hissed. “Shiro, _please_.”

“Hmm.” He nuzzled into Keith’s chest. “Please what?”

“Fuck me, suck me, let me come I—I can’t. Break me, Shiro _I don’t care_ but I need, fuck I need…” Another finger wormed its way into him and set a brutal pace, the sound loud in Keith’s ears as he was fucked by Shiro’s hand. “Shiro!”

“I’ve got you baby.” The fingers slowed, dragging along his insides in starbursts of pleasure. “Just let go.”

Keith sobbed. His neglected cock twitch violently when Shiro pulled out and his hips tried to follow the fingers. Shiro pressed him back against the sheets, keeping him there for a moment while the sound of Shiro slicking up his dick hit Keith’s ears.

He was hauled up without warning, the pressure of being kept still shattered as he was pulled up into Shiro’s lap and Shiro’s fat cock sunk home.

“Yes!” Keith hissed and fucked himself down onto Shiro while he still could. He freedom didn’t last long.

Shiro took hold of his hips again and fucked him at a slow, brutal pace. Time lost all meaning for Keith as he was broken open by Shiro, sensation and stimulation numbing him out to everything but the heat inside of him and the intermittent slide of a hand over his aching cock.

He was so far gone he didn’t feel it coming, not at first. A cool sensation ran up his spine and then everything was molten, Shiro’s hand on him milking him through his orgasm while Shiro continued to fuck into him. The sensation continued to break over him even after his cock lay spent on his belly, the aftershocks rattling him to his bones until Shiro shouted and came hot and sticky inside of him.

Comedown was slow, and happened in waves. One moment Keith was prone on the bed, body twitching from stimulation, next his arms were being brought down, numbness being rubbed out of them. He started to truly come to when he felt a warm cloth cleaning him up and wiping down the fluids that covered his body.

“Shiro?” He croaked.

“Hey,” Shiro said. He tossed the washcloth away and pulled Keith into his arms. “You back with me?”

“I think so… that was…” Keith was lost for words. He felt like he’d been broken into pieces and put together again so sweetly. “Wow.”

“Yeah,” Shiro breathed. “You feel better?”

“I feel great.” His words slurred together a bit. “You?”

A deep, satisfied rumble came out of Shiro’s chest. He curled around Keith, surrounding him and keeping him close. “Much better. Thank you, for letting me take care of you.”

Keith ducked his head into Shiro’s shoulder and sighed, completely content. “You always take care of me, my love.”


End file.
